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I just finished playing 13 games of MOO2 with my typical Cluster Map, Impossible, PreWarp, 8 player settings. I was able to win with 8 civs and lost with 5 civs

As expected some of the civs seem lots better for human play than other civs. On pre-warp, civs that have no advantage for research can really get stuck in the starting gate and I had trouble with most of those. Here's a run down.

I won quite easily with Klackons and Psilons and very easily with Silicoids. I won reasonably easily with Humans and Sakkras. I won with Meklar but it wasn't as easy as expected. I won with Alkari (had a nice spot) and Bulrathi (few enemies so I got rolling large). In most cases I won by attacking Antares rather than killing everyone or winning the vote.

Silicoid proved to be the easiest for me, and I was only 40 or 50 turns slower than what I could usually do playing the very OP UniTol custom race. Tolerant and Livorthore meant lots of planets with no pollution and no farming so more researchers and workers as needed. I also had a great starting spot.

Meklar was slower to get going than I expected as I was eating up some of my production and had a poor starting spot.

Sakkra inspite of the Feudal research penalty wasn't so bad since the farming bonus means 5 researchers at the start and fast population growth and big planets soon accellerated things.

I lost horribly with Darlok and I spawned near the Silicoid who hated me quickly and blitzed me. Usually I can defend this, but not this time.

I lost badly with Elerians and starting with only 6 research was SO SLOW. I have to try a quick teleblitz approach next game with them.

I never quite got the Mrrshans rolling enough to use their combat advantages as I spawned inbetween hostile civs.

I expected to do better with Gnolam, but was too slow and couldn't expand like I wanted to and eventually the Sakkras buried my empire.

I expected to do better with Trilarians but the nearby planets weren't good for Aquatic and I ran into strong hostile neighbors.

OK so it is back to war for me for the 5 civs that I lost with, starting with Darlok.

.. neilkaz, still having fun with this game after more than a decade ..

Oh the pain of trying Darlok a 2nd time. Things went OK, but again I was boxed in and just not enough planets. Once I could take 2 nice monster planets (slowed by having repulsive Bulrathi and run-away civ repulsive Sakkra war me) I was looking OK.

My spies were robbing the Sakkra blind (-10 spying for them) and my EMG was killing off his attacking fleet, but I couldn't muster enough force to counter attack as they'd attack my less defended systems and I couldn't get enough to kill their star bases.

Anyhow, as I was building and teching more and seemingly OK, my Psilon ally stabbed me in the back and even though he'd been hurt by Sakkras, his ships were too much and then the Klackons joined the kill-neilkaz party.

Loss #2 for my Darloks.

Now to try game #2 with Elerian. This time rather than immediately selling my Star Base for early econ, I'll just go total Cruiser (CC) blitz. A scout will grab any planets I can see with splinter colonies. This blitz will be hard pre-warp, but conventional play seems to slow with Elerians.

Elerian are a war making race. Very aggressive as AI. That's hardwired into the game. Never box them in if you don't want a fight. I did that once and saw them trash non-agg pact, trade and research treaties and roll over my guys. Game over. It was one of those games where I treatied my neighbors, so I figured I was safe and didn't build warships and put everything into expanding into more systems. Dumb move.

As Elerian, getting to cruiser size ships asap and hitting your neighbors early is the tactic the race was created for. A cruiser costs about as much as a colony ship to produce, so you have to sacrifice colony making to building a fleet. But a couple cruisers early on can wreak quite a bit of havoc if you got the range to reach the others. For an all out war game, Elerian are my favorites of the stock races.

My Elerian game is going lots better than my initial try with them did. So slow at Pre-Warp to get any tech to get a missile CC out, but I managed by about turn 80 and needed extended fuel tanks to reach the Coids. Their first planet had no defence so it was "thanx" but I needed a couple more ships to take out it's starbases in other systems.

Initially I used simple nuke missiles and didn't even spend the space for reinforced hull as the Coids didnt have much firepower. While I was finishing them off the Darloks decided to try to help themselves to my home system, but I arrived a turn later before they could do any real damage. Then it was into the Darlok colonies and it took quite a few ships to take out their starbases.

Unfortunately at turn 170 just as I'd finished off the Darloks, and the Gnolams decided to war me, the hyperspace beast showed up and I lost one nice BB that was in transit and now with Zort armor and MIRV Mercs. 20 turns later the beast was gone, and I grabbed an undefended Gnol planet. But he has good defences on other worlds and I think I need to pause the attack a bit and make sure to refit my weaker ships as MIRV Mercs are killers usually well past turn 200.

I am hoping to steal AutoLabs from the Gnols and EMG will be soon my research target.

With the Gnols gone, I will control the entire right third of the galaxy and should have a won game, especially if I get Orion.

The Silicoids had a bonus attribute of +50 pop growth and I've been transporting them to toxic and radiated planets as they are far superior to my race.

The hyperspace beast is a nuisance. If you move your ships about in fleets that seems to reduce the chance of losing a ship. I usually have a huge number of freighters, 125 or more, for moving pop and food around. Better the beast eats one of them than a warship. When planets that are maxed out in pop, I'll send one of their pop to a low pop planet. Moving extra pop to new colonies gets them productive earlier, and between that and moving food around, I'll still run short of freighters sometimes.

I find that I'll get more techs through planet conquests and ship captures than spying. Sometimes netting a couple techs from a captured planet. That's another reason to go on the offense early with a poor researching race.

Hmmm.. I was unaware that the hyperspace beast would eat freighters. Like you I have many freighters and will make more as needed. My understanding is that you don't pay for ones that are just sitting idle.

A minor correction from my previous post in that I didn't yet have MIRV Mercs with Zort by turn 190 when the beast left, but it wasn't that long afterwards and this meant bye-bye AI's.

Bloody surrenders..LOL around turn 210 I was just sitting on one Gnol planet while making a few Merc 18's (Battle Ships..full mod Merc (except EMG) RH, and BP) and refitting some of my cruisers while killing off his ships as they attacked and with 5 systems, the Gnol surrenders to the Sakkra who are on the other side of the map !! Well..since Sakkra was going to have to be my next target anyhow, and I couldn't let them grow more to be OP..I didn't hesitate to go after them.

Soon I had EMG and a few EMG 2's (DD with two full mod EMG MIRV Mercs, RH, BP) helped take out the Sakkra fleets and defend colonies while my bigger ships ruled and mind controlled. Them the Cats (who had no place to go, but into Sakkra jumped them) and it was more than poor Hissa could handle. Spies and conquests took every meaningful tech the previously large Sakkra empire had.

Ooo/// turn 235 and the GC vote comes up, and all three other civs vote for me (either currently at war or previously at war with the Sak) and when I voted for myself it was game over.

I can only imagine how strong this Elerian blitz is if not playing Pre-Warp and on a smaller map.

Turn 235 is the quickest I'd won a game with standard civs, although my Silicoid game was more dominant than this as here I had some dangers of losing some battles and lost some ships and leaders etc and didn't have nearly the econ or science. Captured Silicoid slaves were a HUGE benefit to me here in this Elerian game.

Re: spying...I often find it useful and will check on my espionage targets to see what they have. As long as they don't have many spy techs researched, I can often steal a few things. Sakkra get a -10 spying penalty and I can often rob them blind. Human democracy has a defensive agent penalty and they often are my victims as well. But it is much harder to take things from a Klackon (Unified agent bonus) or Telepath (spy bonus). Sometimes you think that you should be successful spying and you aren't or your spies are dieing and that usually means your target has a spy master leader.

Next up..my 2nd try with Gnolam. Maybe this time I will have nice neighbors for trading and a better start. If needed I'll make outposts as ends of worm holes if I think it will help me meet an AI or two more quickly as I want to quickly use the super trader attribute (overrated and too expensive)

Grrr..I just started a Gnolam game..lousy start..just a Barren pop 4 poor world in my system that isn't even LG for me. Hmmm...I make 13 BC/turn vs other civ's 5BC so I think it makes less sense to sell the Star Base for 200 BC and saving 2 maintenance/turn. I have to think about that but given my starting position near the middle of the map and yellow planets towards both near corners I can expect as least one AI to be in a corner near me and will want to attack them quickly and need a battle ship or certainly something larger than a few DD's. I'll keep my Star Base and not have to worry about building it later. Well.. I'll think about that as it is bedtime anyhow.

Now that I think more about it, I'm not certain the hyperspace beast eats freighters. I didn't play with the random events on for years, and memory of this may be wrong.

The main reason I don't spy much early game is because it can trigger a war before I am ready. I usually wait till I get a good sized fleet first and don't have to worry about getting wiped out. Then I may use spying to trigger a war with someone I'm treatied to once I've taken out the repulsives. I am currently playing a game using a Darlok like race, but have yet to spy on any one. Been tech trading alot instead, since it turned out to be one of those games where there are no repulsive races.

I usually spy mid game rather than early game as by then I may have a decent spy tech advantage and can afford a few spies to send off to the victim who may be easy pickings.

My Gnolam game was the disaster I expected as I was boxed in the near middle as expected and couldn't expand very well which means you end up weak. Had the humans in the corner behind me and relations were good with them, and we made an alliance and I was hopeful, but around turn 210 they stabbed me in the back and along with other unfriendly civs warring me, I was overrun.

My Mrrshan game is going considerably better. While I have almost no experience with early beam ships, I think this is the way to go, rather than my usual early missiles since I then get to use the +50 attack as well as the better crew experience from Warlord.

I am trying out a bunch of different things, all from a quick blitz from my home system as a learning experience as to how to better play them and will report back in a few days once I learn what is best.

My try with Mrrshans and working up to AF Mass Drivers with Class 3 shields was a nice success. I make no colony ships since I wanted to attack quickly and decided to use the wormhole across the galaxy to the Trilarians since, even though they seemed friendly, they wouldnt trade with me, unlike the Psilons and Elerians and later the Humans.

Initial Mass Driver destroyers seemed good enough, and it was nice to be Warlord and have few CP issues. I didn't even bother with Battle Scanner, figuring that I had enough attack anyhow with +50 and rarely did I miss. I took one Trilarian system and then turned onto the Gnolams since I had nothing but basic fuel cells and couldn't reach more planets yet. I've found that for early wars, I need Trit armor or my ships can't stand up in battle. This is less important when using missiles and shoot and scoot.

Later I traded for Dueterium Cells and was able to take out the Trilarians who now had Class 3 shields, but fortunately I did also, since they easily took out my non shielded destroyers. With 5 or 6 DD's I often managed to get up next to the starbase and board it a few times and take it over. Almost every decent colony was making destroyers or transports. I took Fusion Rifle rather than Beams since using Mass Drivers and the extra 5 GC helped.

On move 193 the GC vote came up, and I had non aggression treaties with Human, Psilons and Elerians and they'd all had issues with the Sakkras so they all voted for me..11 votes. I had 11 myself and 22 is barely more than 2/3 of 32 so a quick win.

When I earlier tried Fusion Beams, they did good damage, especially when Heavy and Enveloping, but I had no shielding and once we'd reached the upper 100's in turns, I was losing too many ships and my star bases couldn't stand up to attacked w/out shielding. I did put Battle scanners on those ships, but I think choosing continuous sometimes was overkill since with so much attack percentage I think I'd always hit anyhow.

Congrats on your Mrr win. I think the starting placement has more effect on winning than the stats of the race you use. Or maybe an equal effect because it is often possible to over come a bad start with a powerful custom race.

I treaty those I can for the extra research and funds and to also keep them quiet. I usually need the extra funds and the extra research allows more pop to be on production. If their friendliness slips below around the 3/4 mark, I'll gift them techs to raise it back up. It doesn't stop them from declaring war altogether, since a lot of the programming around that is random, but it does make them less likely to do so. Having a strong fleet reduces the early to mid game alien hostility a lot, too. Those demanding tribute early on later become best buddies when my fleet gets up there in size. There have also been times when I was next to a repulsive whose friendliness was down to "feud" and they never attacked throughout the game. That was also probably because I had a very strong fleet.

I think I only voted in that GC thing one game to see what would happen. Since it ended the game when I felt I was just getting started, I've never voted since. I like going after the Antarans. I wish I could increase their raiding frequency and the intensity of their attacks in the latter part of the game to add more of a challenge. Most games I don't finish, but those I do always mean an attack on the Antaran home world. The AI will nail Orion, but they never go after the Antaran planet, as far as I can tell.

If I got them, my mid game ships rely upon mass drivers and fusion beams. The fusion to peel off the shields and the drivers to do the rest. Early game I rely upon interceptors mostly. Prefer them to missiles since they do more damage. Once I got 100% hitting adjustments from computers and specials, I then switch over to beam ships. I like the instant hitting gratification of beams. AI ships neutralized during my turn don't fire back on their's.

Thx...it surprised me to win in the GC so early with such a low vote total but noone had expanded t be large. I was the dominant civ and would soon have more conquests so I don't feel the Mrr game was a cheap win. I played from a late save a few times to check out my Mass Driver DD's and made some notes to compare later vs the Fusion Beam approach.

When I started my Trilarian game it looked like a good start on the right edge with two acceptable planets in my system to colonize. Hmm..Mecklar in the corner below me and he quickly colonized a planet near me and never acted friendly. Fortunately, Elerians towards the center and the Cat up in the other corner both wanted to play nice and treaty up. That meant I could ready myself for the war with the Mecklars and I was able to buy two DD's with MIRV Nukes when they showed up and that killed their attack so I went on the offensive taking their planets one by one often using 6 DD's. I had to sometimes leave a one behind to defend vs a counter attack.

I also made some scouts, both to weaken the Mecklar star base by raiding it (they get to it in two turns even with early game drive speed) and to explore more of the planers around him. At one point I was running such a CP deficite that I had to trade goods on a couple planets and nearly max taxes, but it was worth it since now I controlled the Mecklar empire and that nice corner. My missile DD's then took out a hydra guarding a superb huge gaia UR planet and my game was looking good.

Just as the war started, Mecklar stole Advanced Damage Control from me (Sparky) so I traded it to the Elerians and Cats gaining Deut Fuel Cells to go with my Trit armor.

I consolidated for a while and then went searching for the other civs and Orion using worm holes and outposts. Psilons wanted to be my best buds so I accepted and soon had nice income and tech from treaties. Finally I found the Darloks and they had to go..1; bcuz I wanted their planets and 2; so they'd not be around to frame me for spying.

Whew ..I just managed to kill the Guardion with two MIRVed Merc BB to blow away his shields and overwhelm his compression field and 4 EMG DD's (I should've sent about 6 of them since he killed two b4 they could get a shot off). Oopps...no X armor this time, but the usual Death Ray is useful in the lower 200 turns as are Reflection and Damper Fields.

Darloks had no chance vs Loknar's ship and I sent in transports from several colonies.

Next in line were the repulsive Sakkras who hated me anyhow and were losing some ground to my friends and allied Psilon. (he asked me). As I was gearing up to attack, I sent in some spies and as usual could rob them blind as I had spying techs and Sak has -10 spying. I switched some of my production over to Disruptors (so nice to steal the only tech in an expensive research line) as I think they can be even more deadly than death rays and I had Locknar's ship anyhow to teleport right up to Star Bases, kill the marines and board. More techs came my way from the Sakkra conquest and lots of high pop planets and it was very clear that a win was on the horizon.

LOL..Elerians now wanting me to give them things ...well I knew who was next , and it was only the hyperspace beast that saved them for a while. Elerians were almost gone by the time I had well over 2/3 of the GC votes on turn 293 as I'd spread all over the map.

An easy win this time for the Trilarians as I was never feeling much of a threat. One reason this game went so much better than my last Trilarian game is that I had a better start and position, but I still knew I'd have to fight early and this time I answered the call of battle and never stopped. I probably also played better, balancing production and science well and transporting colonists all over to make sure I could keep most planets and conquered races growing naturally. (In the game one loss, I basically had no conquests..a huge difference)

Well..now to try game 3 with Darloks (probably the game's worst civ) and Gnolams.

Almost no one is going to like me as Darlok anyhow, so unless I get a spot by myself I'll have to be ready to fight and conquer quickly.

OK my 3rd try with Darlok will end in a nice success. I started on the left side rather near the center and the nearest planet to my right was Orion. No one behind me in the upper left corner , Psilons well below me but he wants to play really nice. Elerian to my left could be an issue but he gets into trouble with Psilons. Coids above me closer to the center so I know who enemy #1 is.

Two acceptable planets in my system and I sell the Star Base to have plenty of cash. I think my starting plan was better this time as I'd save up a pollution free 30 PP in ten turns with one worker and 3 on science. This meant a bit slower research but I could spend 60 BC and get labs and factory built as soon as researched so overall I think I was more efficient and a bit faster. 1 pop housing on both colonies for a while and with factories and labs as I go quickly for Trit armor and Merc missiles so I can MIRV nukes.

Sure enough a Coid BB shows up, by my Nuke 4 DD (4 MV,FST,ARM,ECCM) nukes was able to kill it. I traded Merc Missiles to two friendly civs ending up with needed Deut cells for range to get to the Coids. even as Darlok and with two agents a hostile AI stole Merc missiles from me quickly so I made a third agent and that was my last tech lost. Coids make a new colony close to me and it has no defences and the same for 2 more colonies so they are locked into Crysilon which I blockaded being, able to kill off his ships, while I waited to build a BB to take out the star base. Soon I had some very nice Silicoid slaves and a couple of largish rich and UR planets and now with MIRV Mercs I was on my way to domination. Psilons and I carve up weak Elerians.

EMG researched and now it is time to break the game wide open around turn 210 by taking Orion. X-armor, Death Rays, Particle Beam, Quant Det..so not as good as I'd hoped. Humans DOW me as pissed at my spying so Locknar and a free transports and some EMG DD and a couple Ray BB's and it is the end of them but not after 6 of their BB's with some support ships surprised me at Nazin. My SB was potent along with two EMG 2 DD's but not good enough to hold off, leaving them with just 2 BB's left and me without a capitol which I quickly rebuilt on a UR Coid colony.

During the Human War I made an alliance with the Psilons (to try to make sure they didn't jump me) and they demand I attack the birds and almost immediately they made peace with them. My spies are now +65 as I stole the last spy tech from the Humans and I am scoring new techs nearly every other turn.

OK turn 269 now, and I've spread over 3/4 of the galaxy by conquering everything with transports and now have trashed the Gnolams. Nothing but Darlok and Psilon left and my tech levels are above his thanx to my size and research buildings. I can win at my leisure either by going to Antares or killing the Psilons (punishment for having me fight his Alkarian War).

Success with a garbage race is helped by having a decent starting system and not getting triple-teamed early by hostiles.

Added: As I decided that I'd end this quickly by taking Psilon planets and then going to Antares, I sent 5 spies to the Psilons, but they weren't very effected. Like the Humans he had all the spies techs, but didn't have the democracy agent penalty. I presume he must have had a spy master leader as well, since stolen techs were very few. However, I took some techs from invasions.

On turn 291 off to Antares I go with about 40 ships, the big ones being hard to kill Titans with HA and RH and Death Rays and Grav Beams as well as Energy Absorber and #5 shields and a few other goodies. EMG DD's took out the two ships guarding Antares and some quick DD's with stolen plasma torps and aug engines (get up close so less range dissapation losses) helped every thing else (Death Ray BB's) pound the star fortress.

Next up and hopefully the end of this journey is my third try with Gnolam (the only stock civ I've yet to win with). It seems that I've rolled an acceptable galaxy for them, as I am near the lower right corner with two planets to colonize in my system. I do wish that at least one of them was LG..but oh well.

That Darlok game sounds like a fun game. Been running a similar game using a mod I created and playing as a Darlok based custom race using the Elerian graphics. These guys are uncreative and -1 research (but at least they are not feudal ) and I got stiffed in a lot of important areas of the tech tree. Ironically, I got most of my important initial missing techs through friendly tech trading instead of by spying. I needed merculite missiles to nab Orion and only the Klackons had them. And they were not up for trading. So I used spies. And got them right off. And got busted cold. The Klackons didn't declare war, but they canceled the treaties I had with them (by this time I had all the treaties except alliance with all the AI and depended upon these for income and research). They were the largest empire and provided the most treaty benefits and I went from an economic plus to a negative when those treaties got axed.

But worse than that, they sent several powerful fleets towards a system we had joint control of. I had enough ships to counter these fleets individually, but together, no. So I was left with a choice. Wait and see if he attacks, and lose the system if he does, or take the initiative and attack the fleets as they arrive. The AI usually attacks in these circumstances, also I had boxed the Klackons into a corner, giving them little option if they wanted to expand (in this mod the Klackons have the subterranean trait, but the game also gave them aquatic , with only 8-12 planets, in 4 systems, they were the pop leader by this time, by a good margin). I attacked their first fleet when it arrived and captured most of it, then did the same on the second one a couple of turns later. I also took their planet in that joint system, so now they are stuck in their 4 systems with no outlet. Since then they have been building battleships at an average rate of a couple a turn, but have not further attacked.

This has given me an opportunity to spy and use my player race's main positive attribute. Since the war began, I've gotten around 8 techs from the Klackon. From turn 197 till now at turn 227. Not a bad haul compared to previous games where I used spying. I began this game with a very lousy tech tree where most of the stuff I needed simply wasn't offered for research. Early on I was able to make up much of this lack through techs supplied by hired leaders (part of the mod) and trading with the other AIs. I was able to use the merc missiles spied from the Klackon to upgrade my "monster killer" destroyers from interceptors to merc missile armed (some with EMG, a previous trade) "guardian killers".

Brief turn timeline:

32: 1st colony base colony in home system.

59: 4th and last colony base in home system.

70: 1st warship (destroyer armed with interceptors).

75: 1st colony ship.

77: 1st colony in another system.

108: 1st GC vote, Silicoid=5, Gnolam=4, Darlok=3, Bulrathi=3, Mrrsham=2, Klackon=10, Meklar=6 & player=4. The Klackons normally have the subterranean trait, but the game gave them the aquatic trait also. They've been limited to basically 4 systems, but this aqua-sup combo, plus having +100% pop growth, has enabled them to outstrip everyone in pop.

118-133: hyperflux no travel restriction.

139: got 1st monster system.

183: become most populous at the GC vote. Klackon=19 & player=21.

191: got last monster system. There were 8 altogether and getting them involved having friendly relations with all the AI (fortunately there were no repulsives) and colonizing and outposting several systems to get within range. I built roughly 40 interceptor armed destroyers and lost about 30 of these during the course of these battles.

197: spied merc missiles from Klackon (busted).

198: Klackon demand 5% tribute and I spied a 2nd tech from them.

199: Attacked and captured Klackon planet in shared system (they had several fleets headed to the system).

207: nailed the Orion system, losing 5 out of 16 attacking destroyers (11 with mirv/eccm merc. missiles, 5 with EMG added, losses being 4/1 respectively). The tech loot wasn't that great with only particle beam and death ray being worth anything beyond for use in tech trades with the AI.

Since that turn I've been building battleships and modernizing the rest of my ships in order to invade the Klackons proper. They have 30+ battleships and are continuing their build-up at 1-3 battleships per turn. I'm now building battleships, also, but at half that rate.

But being a person, I should have an advantage over this dumb AI, right?

Your Darlok-like game sounds like fun and once you deal with the Klackon menace it will be your game for sure. If you have to fight a huge fleet, missiles may get shot down before they get to the targets. If not, toss in a few more EMG DD's which will kill once shields are knocked down. Of course with Orion you now have death rays as well to mix in. If Klackon is as strong as it seems, you may end up trading planets a few times with him, since that large a fleet will do major damage. However, he'll have no defences elsewhere if that is the case.

My Gnolam game has gone wonderfully. Friendly neighbors and some non-habitable planets as buffers so I could REX somewhat and then nail two nice monster systems.

These garbage civs start so slowly on prewarp but at turn 200 Autolabs were started all over and I have the cash to easily buy anything when half built. Ciods and others killed my Darlok friends and they hated me so I grabbed a couple of their planets and proceeded westward across the galaxy taking more of their planets.

Turn 240 and I am in good control and have finally found Orion which I will need before the Saks (runaway civ as often) take it. Klackons fighting the Coids also, but since they hate me I just killed 5 of their BB's with ease. So once I take the last 2 Coid systems and the 3 Klak systems it will be on to Orion which should give me an easy win as I am allready powerful.

I figured a nicely expanded Gnolam would be swimming in cash and I am.

EDIT: I played til turn 266 last night and the Coids are gone, and Klack has escaped to one remaining planet in Sssla system. I'll finish that off if the Saks don't first and then on to Orion and then to kill the large Sakkra empire. I'll ally the birds and get them to distract Saks from the other side.

I control the entire lower part of the galaxy and am now raking in over 1000BC/turn

The Klackons in my game slowed down their ship construction and I've caught up. Just got to finish upgrading a couple of cruisers. They should not be a problem to attack now.

I have wondered if the AI is limited by upkeep costs on their ships like the player is. The mod has everyone with the warlord trait (never liked the limits on ship numbers the stock game enforced), so they can have more ships before it cost them. But it always seemed the AI could afford to have more ships than the player, so I have wondered if the program limits ship numbers for the AI like it does the player. Had a game once where the dominant AI built around 150 titans and battleships, putting 110 of them into one fleet and scattering the rest about his systems for local defense. The Klackons in this game may have reached a cost limitation for their fleet since they have only 4 systems with 8 planets total. Seven of these have been terraformed to terran, one remains radiated. They have no planetary shields, so cant terraform radiated worlds, but have terraformed the rest all the way to terran, meaning they got lucky with those 4 systems having no toxics and only 1 radiated. With so few planets, they probably cant afford to field more ships, since they have 35 battleships, a dozen or so smaller types and about 20 transports. I'm supporting about 30 battleships, 30 cruisers, about 10 destroyers and 30 transports from an empire of over 50 planets and I'm still more than 30 command points in the red.

One of the things I've never understood about MOO2 is how the economics worked. In the early game when you are in the red and go beyond your savings, the game starts scrapping ships and buildings. But later on, you can operate at a deficit and still make money between turns. I've been ending turns with a -200-300 income generation, with my saving spent (in buying planet improvements) yet I still make 1500 or so the next turn. I have trade treaties with most of the AI and this generates several hundred per turn. Maybe this is why I don't go broke between turns and see things being scrapped?

I relied upon missiles when I first started playing MOO2. It was how I played MOO1. I noticed that missiles did great in the early game, but got less effective as the game went on. There were times I shot off all my missiles and found the AI destroyed enough of them that they failed to bring him down and I had to run for it. Now I rely upon beams once I get +100% hitting with them (and have them to use). When I found I could also capture ships, that additionally weakened the value of missiles in my tactics. I didn't find out that EMG could kill ships till recently (when I saw a thread here about nailing the guardian with EMG missiles) and thought they only knocked out the ship engines and stopped the ship. So didn't know that missiles could be that powerful throughout most of the time I played this game. Still only use EMG missiles to attack the guardian, since by mid game, I try to capture the ships instead of destroy them. My favorite weapon in the early part of the game is fighters. They are more difficult for the AI to destroy than missiles are, and get to keep hitting for 4 turns (then the survivors return to the launching ship to be launched again). Against monsters, they allow early game destroyers to kill these fairly easily. Those early destroyers also function OK as defense against the early AI battleships the repulsives sometimes attack player systems with in the very early part of the game. In one game I defended a planet with several of these interceptor armed destroyers from a early game AI fleet of a battleship and a couple smaller ships. The fighters wiped out the AI before his beams were able to do much damage. Another similar fleet arriving a little later turned and ran as soon as I launched the fighters. There were also times these destroyers failed to stop the AI. One time I remember the AI wiped out half my destroyers on the 1st turn before they even had a chance to launch their fighters (about half of those lost were destroyed by core explosions from the destroyer next to them ). One other advantage interceptors have over missiles is they can be used to destroy incoming enemy missiles and fighters. This is very useful early game when all you got otherwise are lasers and anti-missile rockets.

Humans had no chance and Saks are losing planets gradually and at turn 290 I had at least 3/4 of the galaxy and took a win in the GC. I could get a total conquest victory (conquer every planet rather than destroying it) in maybe 25 to 30 more turns without working hard and that would mean stabbing my bird allies once the reptiles are gone.

Saks had some nasty missile bases and I almost lost some lone titans !

They had A-armor, planet shields and zeon missiles.

Even though I had decent upgraded phasor PD on these X-armored R.Hull Titans, they did lots of damage so I made a few new Titans with ECM jammers (buying when have built with my megabucks) and they were taking less damage. Anyhow...I am drowning is cash now.

Re: AI econ..I've seen the AI lose whole fleets of ships when they are in a huge cash crunch and have little CP. But in your mod, Warlord gets so many extra CP.

Re: early fighters...they can rock, but this means that you don't get reinforcedhull. You could go heavy armor instead (I prefer hulls since once structure is gone, ship is toast) but then no auto-factories.

Since I can't live without RH or factories I am a missile guy early on. However, one could trade, if not repulsive for fighters, but as always you have to give the AI something from a higher tech level.

Since I wanted to test early fighters and didn't want to miss out on critical techs to do so, I decided to start up a game with an OP creative production race. Uni-creative and I used the other 6 picks for prod+1 and LRHW. This is a rocking production race with 45 total production from the home world at the start (5 x 9) but 19 is lost to pollution (which will be soon helped by pollution processors which come along with the critical Merc missile tech).

Anyhow..I tried some early fighters, but didn't find them as effective as early MV nuke missiles. However, I only researched quickly to Fusion Beam so I guess my fighters only had PD lasers rather than Fusion beams? That might explain why I observed missiles clearly doing more damage per space consumed.

I forgot how much fun creative can be (only having played it when Psilon which was a rather easy win) as I can build anything I want and don't have to make difficult decisions in the research tree nor worry much about stealing techs since I will get them all anyhow.

In mine, I finally got to duke it out with the Klackon fleet. They approached a system I had just constructed a planet in (planet construction being one of the techs my spies picked up from the Klackons ). They sent a colony ship and their whole fleet. While they were en route, I captured one of their systems (with 2 planets), then moved the bulk of my fleet to meet them. I had 35 battleships (inc. Avenger), 20 cruisers & 8 destroyers vs 37 battleships, 8 cruisers, 2 destroyers & 3 frigates. Tech was equal (partly thanks to my spies ). He relied mostly upon plasma torpedoes and bombers. It was the torpedoes that were my main worry, since once fired, there is nothing to stop them hitting. A nice counter to a foe bent on capture without transporters. With my tech, and his reinforced hulls, it meant that his ships would be able to fire at least once before the hammer dropped and those torpedoes would press on irregardless and provide maximum bang. The other thing I noticed is he had dispensed completely with anti-missile rockets on all his new construction since the first battles we had. In those battles I didn't use missiles at all. That was the first time I've seen the AI not use the a-m rockets on their battleships. Does the AI use player tactics when designing their ships? I've seen hints of this in other games before.

The battle went smoothly and lasted 2 turns. Captured 30 battleships, 5 cruisers and a destroyer. No losses among my ships. The 7 battleships destroyed self-immolated or possibly one or two of those I captured were attacked by their siblings (it was hard to see what happened during the AI turn with so many ships about ). Messed up my economics big time. Went from around -15 command points to -150 and saw a loss of about 1500 BC that turn. But scrapping all those ships but one of the battleships netted about 9000 BC, so it was worth it .

An annoying thing that happened while I was invading the larger of their 2 planets I captured was the game kept crashing to desktop every time it went to ground combat mode. Tried several times. I had over a 100 troops and the Klackon had around 17 tanks plus 35 troops when this was happening. Tried reducing their numbers with bombardment first and when I knocked out about a third of them, the game would go to ground combat without crashing. I don't know if this is an original bug, or I passed some game limit on ground troops or my mod created a new bug. Doubt I'll ever find out.

Even though I had decent upgraded phasor PD on these X-armored R.Hull Titans, they did lots of damage so I made a few new Titans with ECM jammers (buying when have built with my megabucks) and they were taking less damage. Anyhow...I am drowning is cash now.

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I found that using regular beams worked better against missiles and fighters than PD beams did. My favorite anti-missile/fighter beam has to be regular fusion with the enveloping and continuous upgrades in the first half of the game. In the second half, it's plasma cannon with the same upgrades. Both knock out an average of 3-4 of their relative level missiles/fighters per shot. That enveloping mod is a real killer. Regular mass driver with AP and autofire are also very good in the first half. Gauss is also, in the 2nd, but too bulky till very late in the game. The late beam PD work good, also, but the regulars can serve as multi-purpose. To give an idea, one of my current battleship designs in the above game is armed with 18 regular fusion beams and 4 tractor beams. This ship is good against stripping the shields off several ships, or completely demolishing one battleship, or two, will totally eradicate dozens of incoming missiles, fighters and assault shuttles per turn and even took out one of those 1000 structure point wandering space eels single handedly. The ship has augmented engines, battle pods, battle scanner and inertial stabilizers. One of these alone can take care of what comes out of a fighter garrison plus a missile base. About the only thing she isn't good for is attacking planets with shields, but none of the early beams are useful in that role. I had 6 of these in the Klackon battle described above and they were very valuable for immobilizing the Klackon battlefleet and stripping it of its shields so the ships could be boarded. In this mod, fusion beams are about 50% more powerful than in the stock game, because they don't get the heavy mod. They also take up more space and cost more than the originals. They are designed to be close range weapons with the 2x range penalty, for use in fast ships (the AI will use heavies, even though that is disabled in the program for the player, which was an unforeseen plus for the AI in the mod).

Edit: I made fusion damage about twice what it originally was. Not 50% greater.

Re: early fighters...they can rock, but this means that you don't get reinforcedhull. You could go heavy armor instead (I prefer hulls since once structure is gone, ship is toast) but then no auto-factories.

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I don't usually use reinforced hull or heavy armor except in special circumstances, since I prefer using the space for more weapons. If I do use one of them and have a choice, I prefer HA since it also negates the AP mod on beam weapons (and forces them to knock out the armor first, like unmodified beams).

Since I can't live without RH or factories I am a missile guy early on. However, one could trade, if not repulsive for fighters, but as always you have to give the AI something from a higher tech level.

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Gotta have factories. Most of the time I will trade the AI more advanced techs for less advanced ones I didn't get, BUT NEED. I expect it. Also to get missing techs, you can trade the AI your advanced tech and then attack soon after before they have time to implement them.

Anyhow..I tried some early fighters, but didn't find them as effective as early MV nuke missiles. However, I only researched quickly to Fusion Beam so I guess my fighters only had PD lasers rather than Fusion beams? That might explain why I observed missiles clearly doing more damage per space consumed.

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If you had fusion beams, your fighters should have been using fusion PD beams. I'm not sure if fighters use the beam mods, like enveloping, autofire, etc. or just the straight unmodified weapon. If they do, then you probably need to research the next couple of levels to get them, like normally. Both mass driver and fusion beam are techs one level lower than the mirv mod for nuke missiles is. Therefore they can be had sooner, but their mods are 1-2 above that. I don't think I've used fighters when I only had lasers. By the time I used them, I probably also had better beams. My main reason for liking them is their staying power. They are much harder to destroy than missiles (5 HP x armor level type - for zort, that is 15 hp, it's much less for missiles) and they can get through lightning shields. I've had more success with fighters than missiles against monsters because of this. By the time I'm up against the other races, I use mostly beams. When I have a choice, that's not always available.

Edit: it's the heavy fighters who have the 5 hp x armor level. The descriptions don't say how many hp interceptors and bombers get and I could not find this info in the modding tools, they could be less than 5. Assault shuttles have 3 hp x armor level. Perhaps interceptors have 3 hp and bombers 4 hp?

The mod I created gives everyone a basic armament suite from the beginning (I got fed up with the stock game's ill logic). In armament you get lasers, nuke missiles and bombs, fighter bays, assault shuttles and anti-missile rockets whether you are uncreative or creative. Along with other basic techs everyone should be guaranteed to get every game. See this list here:

Techs beyond that list, you only get one of several, if not creative, as the regular game. For example, you have auto. factories, troop pods or planetary missile base in the 2nd level construction tech. Third level construction techs are reinforced hull, heavy armor & battle pods. My own choices at these two levels would be factories and battle pods, given a choice.

Sorry about the reply being so long, hadn't realized I had written so much till after I saw it posted.

Correction to the post above. I was editing the text for the help.lbx file and noticed that under heavy armor for the missiles it stated missiles have 4 hits normally and the heavy armor mod raises their hits to 10. So missiles are apparently tougher to kill than interceptors. This matches what I observed recently when I used enveloping fusion beams to attack missiles and fighters in the same battle. They pretty much consistently took out 4 interceptors per shot, but only got 2-3 missiles per shot. The missiles were armored. This was opposite of my memory of past experience. When I originally noticed that it was harder to kill fighters than it was missiles, I was still using mass drivers with the autofire and ap mods. It might be ap modded beams negate missile armor like they do ship armor, so armored missiles are no tougher than regular missiles to these beams. The fusion beams don't have the ap mod, so that is probably why they couldn't knock out as many missiles per shot as they did fighters. I think I will arm ships with both ap modded beams and enveloping beams for use against armored missiles and unarmored missiles/fighters, respectively, in the future, if I got them. According to the game description, heavy fighters are armored, so these may also need a beam with ap to effectively destroy them. I cant recall the last time I tried shooting any heavy fighters down.